| Side
Panel Power Mod |
By: Lee “Bellerophon”
Hancock
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| As I begin, please keep in mind that this is my first “how-to”
and as such may be crap. Alright, with that out of the way, let’s begin.
If you’re reading this your most likely
just as frustrated as everyone other pc owner with a fan installed in
their removable side panel. Up until now you’ve been a slave to that bastard
little power cable. Even worse
off are those with a combination fan and side window. You end up with a cable that’s too short to
remove the side without disconnecting it and too long to keep hidden out
of the way once it’s installed. Well let’s get to work fixing that for
good!
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You need:
- 1
Keystone jack RJ-11 (phone) or RJ-45 (Cat5)
- 1
small length of phone cable (c’mon you know you got some laying around
somewhere)
- lots
of double-sided tape (you can substitute this with the glue below if
you’re the brave non mistake making type)
- Super
Glue (epoxy)
- Electrical
tape or other means of joining spliced wires
- Small
piece of something that just happens to be a perfect right angle (we’ll
get to this later)
Ok, here we go.
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| Step
1. |
First let’s take a look at that keystone jack.
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We’re going to be using the two pins on the left for our positive and the
two on the right for our negative. I chose to use all four due to the large difference
in the gauge of wire. It’s generally
not a good Idea to transfer power from a larger wire into a smaller one.
Before you connect the jack to a power wire you’re going to need
to make it an easier target for the RJ-11 jack to mate up with.
As you can see below, you just need to create somewhat of a funnel
by taking off the sharp edges. This gives you a little bit (and I mean a little
bit) of play when it comes to lining up the RJ-11.
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| Step
2. |
Splice/connect a power cable onto the wires/pins on the
back of the keystone jack. For this I used one of those power extensions
that already had the two small fan cables coming out of it. Once you’ve done that you need to start looking
for a place to mount the jack. I
chose the back of the rail that supports the power supply on my Antec case.
If you look closely you can see the power cables running out from
below it over to the power extension. (I’ll clean that up later)
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| Step
3. |
Alright. At this point you’re done with the case side
of the project. Let’s move on to
the Side Panel. First, begin by measuring
out the amount of phone cable your going to need in order to get your RJ-11
over to where you mounted the Jack. Take
special care in the route that you take.
I had to avoid the area shaded in red because that’s where the side
panel comes in contact with the case.
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Once you’ve got the correct amount, splice the cable into the fan wires.
It should look something like this. (Keeping in mind that we’re using
all four wires on the phone cord.)
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Good, now that’s done we can move onto mounting the RJ-11 jack to the side
panel. *note: it’s a good idea at
this point to break that little locking tab off of the jack, if you forget
now, you just may end up locking the phone cable into the keystone jack*
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| Step
4. |
This is where that “Small piece of something that just
happens to be a perfect right angle” comes into play.
You see, if we want to have that sucker plug into the keystone jack,
its going to have to be at a right angle to the side panel.
Luckily I had a spare piece of plastic that was perfect for this
application. I super glued it to the RJ-11 and attached that
assembly to the side panel at the location I determined earlier would line
up with the keystone jack. (You may want to use double sided tape for now
until your positive about this location.)
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| Step
5. |
Now you’re just about done.
The remainder of the project will be spent realigning the RJ-11 and
the Keystone jack until they mate perfectly every time.
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Hopefully your project will turn out the way you intend.
It’s hard to predict the outcome or even outline the procedure when
every case and mounting position will be unique. Maybe one day case or mod
manufacturers will see fit to preinstall such a device to make thing a lot
easier on us, but for now, Good Luck on your new mod!
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*Side notes:
- For
those of you with more that one fan on the side panel or maybe even
a fan and a cold cathode (very risky to mess with the power supply of
this component!!!), you may want to consider using an RJ-45 jack and
UTP network cable. This will
give you four pairs of wire to work with rather than just two in an
RJ-11.
- Use
the double sided tape as much as possible until you are absolutely sure
your configuration works! It’s
much easier to remove the tape that it is to remove glue/epoxy. Once you know it works, feel free to make
things permanent.
- And
yes, I’ve got to say this again. If
you do end up patenting or profiting from a device based off of this
idea, all I ask is for a little bit of thanks.
A free sample of the final product perhaps, or maybe just a little
bit of old fashioned cash. :o)
Author: Lee Hancock |
